some things i noticed while in brookline this weekend, my first time back since really settling into brooklyn
1- brookline does not have garbage on the streets
2- stores in brookline are open on shabbos
3- Boston is aptly described as petite
4- Whenver I venture into the world of expensive-track-pant-wearing, blackberry-bearing non-Jewish white people, I get confused.

"pil'ei pela'im"

Among the many things Rav Goldvicht said this week:
In Paroh's rendition of his dream (as opposed to the third person narration), he describes the 7 cows that are "yefot to'ar" and the seven "rakot." Rachel is yefat to'ar as opposed to Leah, whose eyes are rakot.* Yaakov worked seven years for Rahel, which turned out to be "eaten" by Leah and he needed to work seven more.
The point: Yosef's interpretation of Paroh's dream is simultaneously an interpretation of yosef's own future. It is what convinces him that the fate of his family (whether the rahel-leah rift will be fixed) is going to be decided as it becomes bound up with the fate of Egypt - a la Ramban, who suggests that Yosef didn't contact his father because yosef wanted to make sure his dreams of his own exhaltation were fulfilled. In this reading, not that he needed to fulfill the dreams literally and have ppl bow to him, but he didn't want to reunite prematurely, before he knew that he and his brothers could really be part of one family, which he only learns (unpredictably, granted) through the whole Egypt, famine, etc saga.

*upon closer examination, leah's eyes are racot, w/ a kaf, while the cows are raqot, with kuf. so this allusion really more of a pun?

In which we are introduced, and the story begins*

A Brooklyn Moment:
I was introduced by a neighbor to another woman in shul:
"This is Miriam. She's from Outoftown."

* This may become less A.A. Milne heavy as I recover my sanity (currently being wholly absorbed, and whittled away daily, by a group of 14 year old goblins**), some time within the next year or two...

** but I love them all...